Drilling a cylinder

[David Barker]

Very good information!

[hielsie]

Clever

[lionelsoni]

Here's a way to drill a hole down the center of a cylinder.  I thought that it must be well known; but, when I googled it, I found lots of demand, but nobody who seems to know about this.

It's very simple:  Chuck into the drill the cylinder to be drilled, instead of the drill bit.  Start the drill and, holding the drill bit in your fingers if small or in a pin vise if larger, push it into the center of the work.  It will first make a little hop right to the exact center and then start drilling.  With only a little attention to keeping the drill bit from bending, it will continuously find the center as it advances into the work.

I drilled 3/64 holes into the 1/8-inch hex heads of several brass 2-56 screws today, to hold the uprights of brass handrails that I made to replace the cast-zinc ones broken off a little ETS Czech locomotive.  I had previously just soldered the rails to the screw heads; but that proved too fragile.  I put a hex nut that matched the head onto each screw and chucked it into my Dremel.  I held the number-57 drill bit with my fingers.